Well, it is really hard not to get empathy and sympathy all mixed up, because they are pretty similar. Sympathy is just feeling for someone when something happens to them. Empathy is when you take yourself and put yourself into someone else’s shoes and then feel what they are feeling. You almost take the feeling that they are carrying and make it your own.
I read this chapter in a little more of a critical view then I do most because after our last fishbowl I realized that I was not questioning as I read, I waited till we discussed to question. On about the second page Pink tells a story about him staying up late and yawning and then says that if we yawned that means that we are empathetic and if we didn't, well, that is too bad. I didn't yawn but yet I scored about a 74 out of 80 on the empathy quotient where most people get around 30 or 40. Also, when Mr. Pink was talking with us over the live video feed he told us to draw an E on our forehead. I drew mine to the right, because as I am left-handed it felt more natural to do so. He then explained that some "research" has just been done to say that if your e is to the left it means you are empathetic, if it is to the right you are selfish because you wanted to read it you didn't make it so the other person could read it. A lot of other people also felt the same way. Well, I found this information from this website and here is the research. I just don't believe that some little test can define a whole being. I do not feel that it is to do that.
Pink states that people have an innate ability to feel with someone, to be empathetic. But then how does he explain the countless books that take the human and bring it back down to its suggested savage instinct. Like the book we read in my English class called Lord of the Flies. It was about a bunch of boys that got stranded on the island and eventually all turned into savage beasts. I wonder what Pink thinks of that. It is also shown in different works of Shakespeare. He takes a human and brings out the naturally greedy and evil ways of them.
In my opinion empathy has been around forever but just has never had to be recognized on a large scale before. I don't really feel as if it needs to have attention brought to it, I just think that it needs to be present. Also, I feel that the ability to step back, assess the situation, and make a decision unimpeded by emotion is still and will be a very important skill to be able to do. If you are unable to assess a situation without emotion overcoming you when you are a vet, then you will loose your job. Also if you are a pet owner, or even a mother, you have to make decisions without emotion of your own, you have to do what is best no matter how it affects you emotionally.
On page 162 Pink quotes Goleman that people's emotions are rarely put into words, far more often they are expressed through other cues. But how come it is easier to write something emotional to someone rather than say it to them, writing is words. One thing that really bothered me in this chapter was how he referred to Autistics as being out of tune with emotions. But, in contrast, when ever I have worked with an Autistic person, you can feel their emotion and see it in their face even though they can not express it that well, you can see it if you pay enough attention. I also felt like he was stating the obvious a lot in this chapter. Like when he was talking about how lawyers should be able to tell whether or not they are making a persuasive case or not and has always been important in other professions as well. I feel as if Pink is a little careless in his examples and wording because on pg.167 he says that a friend that smiles at you flakily is not really your friend. I really, extremely disagree because even if a friend is not smiling at you in truth at that very moment doesn't mean that they are not really your friend. It just means that they didn't want to hurt your feelings by not laughing at your joke that they thought was dumb or whatever.
When Pink started talking about Empathy with doctors and how it can help patients get better, I believe that it helps them get better only because it makes the patient want to get better, it encourages them. Also, when he started to talk about how nurses are the number one job that is wanted right now, I could not think of one mom that would rather have their kid be a nurse than anything else. Also, I was wondering what is the common health care program that Hilary Clinton wants comes into affect. Then doctors wont get paid as much and the "desire" to be a nurse will plummet. Just a thought!
In my opinion and I guess Pinks also, empathy depends on the individual. The only thing that confused me about that is that Pink is giving us these tests to measure our empathy against others and then he says that it is dependant on the individual. He is very contradictory. I also feel that men are actually equal or more empathetic than women it is just that women are just more open about it.
I read this chapter in a little more of a critical view then I do most because after our last fishbowl I realized that I was not questioning as I read, I waited till we discussed to question. On about the second page Pink tells a story about him staying up late and yawning and then says that if we yawned that means that we are empathetic and if we didn't, well, that is too bad. I didn't yawn but yet I scored about a 74 out of 80 on the empathy quotient where most people get around 30 or 40. Also, when Mr. Pink was talking with us over the live video feed he told us to draw an E on our forehead. I drew mine to the right, because as I am left-handed it felt more natural to do so. He then explained that some "research" has just been done to say that if your e is to the left it means you are empathetic, if it is to the right you are selfish because you wanted to read it you didn't make it so the other person could read it. A lot of other people also felt the same way. Well, I found this information from this website and here is the research. I just don't believe that some little test can define a whole being. I do not feel that it is to do that.
Pink states that people have an innate ability to feel with someone, to be empathetic. But then how does he explain the countless books that take the human and bring it back down to its suggested savage instinct. Like the book we read in my English class called Lord of the Flies. It was about a bunch of boys that got stranded on the island and eventually all turned into savage beasts. I wonder what Pink thinks of that. It is also shown in different works of Shakespeare. He takes a human and brings out the naturally greedy and evil ways of them.
In my opinion empathy has been around forever but just has never had to be recognized on a large scale before. I don't really feel as if it needs to have attention brought to it, I just think that it needs to be present. Also, I feel that the ability to step back, assess the situation, and make a decision unimpeded by emotion is still and will be a very important skill to be able to do. If you are unable to assess a situation without emotion overcoming you when you are a vet, then you will loose your job. Also if you are a pet owner, or even a mother, you have to make decisions without emotion of your own, you have to do what is best no matter how it affects you emotionally.
On page 162 Pink quotes Goleman that people's emotions are rarely put into words, far more often they are expressed through other cues. But how come it is easier to write something emotional to someone rather than say it to them, writing is words. One thing that really bothered me in this chapter was how he referred to Autistics as being out of tune with emotions. But, in contrast, when ever I have worked with an Autistic person, you can feel their emotion and see it in their face even though they can not express it that well, you can see it if you pay enough attention. I also felt like he was stating the obvious a lot in this chapter. Like when he was talking about how lawyers should be able to tell whether or not they are making a persuasive case or not and has always been important in other professions as well. I feel as if Pink is a little careless in his examples and wording because on pg.167 he says that a friend that smiles at you flakily is not really your friend. I really, extremely disagree because even if a friend is not smiling at you in truth at that very moment doesn't mean that they are not really your friend. It just means that they didn't want to hurt your feelings by not laughing at your joke that they thought was dumb or whatever.
When Pink started talking about Empathy with doctors and how it can help patients get better, I believe that it helps them get better only because it makes the patient want to get better, it encourages them. Also, when he started to talk about how nurses are the number one job that is wanted right now, I could not think of one mom that would rather have their kid be a nurse than anything else. Also, I was wondering what is the common health care program that Hilary Clinton wants comes into affect. Then doctors wont get paid as much and the "desire" to be a nurse will plummet. Just a thought!
In my opinion and I guess Pinks also, empathy depends on the individual. The only thing that confused me about that is that Pink is giving us these tests to measure our empathy against others and then he says that it is dependant on the individual. He is very contradictory. I also feel that men are actually equal or more empathetic than women it is just that women are just more open about it.
How can math be changed to where it is not just a set of repeatable formulas??
Jefferson Medical College in Philidalphia: Jefferson scale of physician empathy (JSPE)
interpersonal dynamics @ stanford business school
Autism